sanlorenzo029_mac.jpg A unique dinning experience, at the Brookdale Lodge a creek runs through the center of the restaurant. Brookdale, Ca. Weekend escape story about the San Lorenzo Valley near Santa Cruz. Ben Lomond, Boulder Creek, Felton and Big Basin are amoung the small towns that make up the San Lorenzo Valley.
9/26/03 in Brookdale. MICHAEL MACOR/ The Chronicle less

sanlorenzo029_mac.jpg A unique dinning experience, at the Brookdale Lodge a creek runs through the center of the restaurant. Brookdale, Ca. Weekend escape story about the San Lorenzo Valley near Santa Cruz. Ben ... more

Here in the San Lorenzo Valley, deep in the heart of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the spotted, slimy, canary-colored gastropod is king of the forest.

But we didn't see one.

Because of the popular state park here, and the valley's location smack in the Bay Area's backyard, we also expected blood-curdling back-roads traffic, overcrowded campgrounds, heavily paved paths for mock hiking, unmemorable small towns and low-rent, wannabe-Napa wineries.

We didn't see any of those either.

The San Lorenzo Valley (nowhere near San Lorenzo the city) tends to get overlooked or underestimated. It's a place where you can sleep in a primeval redwood forest and hike 80 miles of secluded, rugged trails at the birthplace of the California state parks system -- just 30 miles from the hazy sprawl of San Jose. It's where you can spend the night at a lodge with a storied (and notorious) past and eat where presidents and celebrities socialized next to a river that still runs through the middle of the dining room. And it's where you can sample wines from secluded, homey boutique wineries that leave most of the pretentiousness to Napa, and spend an afternoon browsing antiques and quaffing craft brews in the laid-back hamlets along meandering Highway 9.

GETTING AWAY TO THE GROVES

Fall is prime time in Big Basin Redwoods State Park, when the sunny days are cooler, the foggy days are fewer and big-leaf maples add flaming accents to the park's main attraction: groves of ancient coastal redwoods, including some of the tallest trees on the planet.

Coastal redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens), which can stretch upward more than 360 feet, grow only within a narrow strip along the coasts of Northern California and Oregon, where foggy summers keep the giants cool. Big Basin, which holds the largest grove south of San Francisco, is more than 30 times the size of Muir Woods, with much taller and much older trees. Big Basin's "Mother of the Forest," for instance, tops out at 329 feet.

These virgin redwoods were the focus when early conservationists gathered at the base of Slippery Rock (now part of the park) on May 19, 1900. They passed a hat, collected $32 in seed money and formed the Sempervirens Club to lobby for protecting the Big Basin area. Two years later, state lawmakers set aside 3,800 acres, forming the first California state park.

The importance of the moment, however, goes far beyond California, said state park ranger Scott Elliott. "This was one of the first purchases of public land by the government . . . in the world. It started a movement."

Today, Big Basin is a whopping 18,000 acres that sprawls across northwest Santa Cruz County and dips a finger into the Pacific at Waddell Beach.

Visitors are campers and day-trippers from San Jose and the Peninsula, as well as tourists from abroad, but the park is still terra incognita to many in the Bay Area, said Elliott. "We do get a lot of people who are 'Wow, I didn't know this was here.' "

In winter, rain and fog dominate the weather forecasts, but, according to rangers, that's when the crowds are lightest, the waterfalls are heaviest and the wildlife comes out of hiding. Especially the banana slugs.

My wife, Ann, and I were among the unknowing masses until our recent visit. While we explored the nicely organized museum (by ourselves) and the gift shop (again, alone), we waited for the tourist-laden tour buses to arrive and unload. They never did.

Trails are plentiful and varied, from easy ambles to all-day treks (all covered in the $2 park map available at the visitor center). We strolled the Redwood Trail, a lightweight path that weaves through the park's most important grove of trees (including Father of the Forest, estimated to be 2, 000 years old), and we managed a portion of the Sequoia Trail to Sempervirens Falls, a hilly path shadowed by live oak, wax myrtle and huckleberry. (Leaf guides printed in Vermont don't work here. Trust me on this.)

SPIRITS WITHOUT SNOBBERY

I had coaxed Ann up the hot, dusty trail with promises of wine tasting later at one of the 40 or so family-owned wineries in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Among those near the San Lorenzo Valley, we picked Byington Vineyard & Winery on Bear Creek Road, in part because it's one of the few that has its own vines. (With only about 1,000 growable acres in the region, most wineries truck in their grapes from elsewhere.)

A steep, wooded side canyon forms a stunning backdrop to Byington's winery. The tasting room is smallish, but the menu the day we were there was big enough, including a Pinot Noir from vines 40 feet from the door, as well as selections made from Monterey and Sonoma grapes.

A wedding and my poor planning prevented us from taking the full tour, but based on the size of the place, I had the feeling it would be a short tour anyway.

Because the best companion to little sips of wine is big glasses of microbrewed beer, we returned to Boulder Creek, on the valley floor, for a pre- dinner pint and snack. The Boulder Creek Brewery and Cafe provided both, as well as the laid-back atmosphere you crave after a long day of sipping wine and looking for banana slugs.

While Ann plumbed the antique shops along Highway 9, Boulder Creek's main strip, I sipped Black Dragon Stout brewed in tanks behind the bar and chomped garlic fries (thankfully, more garlic than fries). The place is an award- winning brewery that opened in 1989, but it's as much cafe as brew pub, judging by the full menu (from pub grub to vegan burritos), the number of families in booths and the hippie-ish vibe. (Sure, it's in the mountains, but it's still the Santa Cruz Mountains.)

A RESTAURANT WITH HISTORY

In Brookdale, a few miles down the road, we surveyed the elaborately decorated walls, terraces and ceiling of the Brookdale Lodge restaurant -- and stared.

As restaurants with eclectic, over-the-top design go, the Brookroom at Brookdale Lodge is, well, definitely one of them.

Set aside the mysterious use of indoor picket fencing and shake shingle, the huge faux-stained-glass hanging light fixture and the miles of white Christmas lights cascading from every corner. Even if you set aside the Santa's-Swiss-Village-meets-the-Flintstones decor, you still have a dining room with 70 feet of Clear Creek running down the middle of it.

The lodge, built in 1870 as a lumber mill headquarters and turned into a rustic log hotel and cottages in 1900, has seen its share of glory days and gory nights. When the nearby creek changed course in 1922, the owner built embankments and the granite-intensive, terraced dining room. A mention in "Ripley's Believe It or Not" raised the woodsy dining room to celebrity status.

From the 1920s through the mid-1940s, the lodge was a first-class resort, hosting vacationing VIPs from Shirley Temple to Herbert Hoover. Mobsters in the '40s ushered the place through some questionable times, leaving the owner's niece drowned (in the dining room creek) and rumors of secret passages and buried bodies.

A fire, an earthquake and several remodels later, the Brookroom is still hopping. The food was good -- Ann had surf (swordfish), I had turf (prime rib) -- and the portions were filling, but we were obviously paying extra for a candlelit table next to the cheerfully gurgling stream that sparkled under blue and green floodlights.

I hadn't expected the place -- or the valley -- to grow on me, but it did. We raised our glasses and toasted unrealized expectations.

And banana slugs, wherever they are.

IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE

-- Boulder Creek is about 30 miles west of San Jose. On Highway 17 toward Santa Cruz, exit on Bear Creek Road -- 13 winding miles that lead to Highway 9 just north of town. Brookdale is 2 miles south of Boulder Creek on Highway 9.

WHERE TO STAY

-- Brookdale Lodge, 11570 Highway 9, Brookdale, CA 95007; (831) 338-6433; www.brookdalelodge.com. Standard rooms ($59-$79 plus tax, October through April) are clean but pricey, considering most of the fixtures and the decor have been unchanged since the Nixon administration. During low season, suites and cottages run $99-$140, including tax, Sunday-Thursday, $115-$175 Friday and Saturday.

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